Saturday, February 25, 2012

One thing that I was cautious about is the diet.

The face of dissapointment

The last 4 weeks I've trained in the region of 20 hours, and since last Sunday things went back to 50% of that or less. Although appetite curbs down, it does not so at the same rate as the decrease in exercise.So I made sure I got plenty of veggies in the fridge and chose all snacks carefuly. I even bought light yougurt (which I hate because it's runny).

It has worked allright with the exeption of a fish and chips evening that we couldn't avoid.

One week out from the big day I am happy to see my shape is "race shape" and I don't look as starved as distance runners do. I have a good balance of bony and chunky areas. According to Nat my butt is too big, but can't do anything about it now.

And the good thing is that I cannot change much in the next 7 days.

Training wise I had a dissapointing Thrusday, as I was meant to do a 2000m TT swimming, which I was hoping it would go under certain barrier. And it didn't. I'm not sure if the fact that I didn't wear a wetsuit is much of an excuse, or that it was laps instead of out and back. What I was happy about, tho, is that I still managed to finish a respectable 15th.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

I aim to have a final countdown. It is not that I am not interested in blogging, but IM training seems to take a fair bit of time of your leisure time.
So, here we are 10 days to race day and most of the last 9 months gone in swims, bikes and runs.
Anxiety is creeping up, two nights ago I and the firs Ironnighmare.
I was in transition and was going through this repetitive tasks and was never making it to the start line. Flashforward to the run and I was being passed by all this randon people while my objective of sub10 was going out. I woke up all sweaty.

Can they run sub 3:15:00?

Tapper week/s
Last week was the last hard week of training and this one and the next are a bit smaller in volume and more generous in the excertion front. What's on the menu?
MON: Swim 1 hr - Run 1.5hr Intervals (a 3:20min/km came out of the blue)
TUE: 2 Hr ride
WED: Swim 1 hr - Run 2hr
THU: ride 1.5 hr - Swim 1hr (2kmTT)
FRIDAY OFF!
SAT: Brick
SUN: Ride 3 hr (and maybe but maybe not) Swim race 4.2km

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

It’s about 18 days to race day and it is all pretty much downhill from here. Overall I think it has been a good 8months plus of consistent training. I was browsing through my log and I managed to do in this period, more 100km plus rides than ever before. I also achieved the longest times ever on my bike (7:15:00) or running continuously (3:40:00). Not bad for a rookie.

From a volume perspective I think I ticked all the boxes.

From an intensity point of view it looks like I’ve taken it too easy on myself and I haven’t done many of these rides or runs at averages close to race pace. There are a few environmental factors to take into account (mostly shit weather and lots of hills) but it is still a worry. However it is something that today I cannot control (i.e. There’s no time machine that I can use to change the past) and I won’t lose any sleep due to it.

From a go out to the races point of view, I am so looking forward to March 3. This season has been pretty sparse on the racing front and I almost forgot how good it is to be out there trying to get from A to B as fast as one can. I have gone through the gear, the nutrition, the course and so on a few times in my mind already, but the next two weeks are to get even deeper into in and have every detail picture.

I also raced. 10 days ago there was the National Sprint championships, that I didn’t run but did an oly distance event instead. The Erin Baker Memorial Triathlon in Kinloch.

The swim
Was not good. I mucked around too much at the start and didn’t position myself in close enough to familiar faces or feet that would help me through. I spent a good amount of energy trying to catch those feet, but it didn’t quite work in the end. At 500m I was already a good 40secs down of whre I should be. And I’ve lost the train.

The bike
I was not going to let a crap swim ruin my day, so I hopped on the bike with the idea of keeping a good solid pace and be passed by the least number of people. The course goes up for 10km and then comes down. I was never to go over 85% of my heart rate, according to the coache’s instructions. To my surprise, I was passed by a bunch of 4 or 5 people, but I passed a similar amount of guys through the leg (probably worst swimmers than I that I never see?)

The run
I had free reign on my run, as long as I negative splitted it. It’s 4 laps of an undulating course with elevations in the order of 3 to 5 m overall. I did the first lap in 9:20, the second and third in 9:15 and the last one in 9:04. A good negative split that put me as #12 overall and a vote of confidence to my legs.

As I said at the beginning, I miss being out there racing, so let’s get all that good vibes ready for 3 March.